The First Oil Tanker – Zoroaster
The first oil tanker ever in the history of the world, which was launched in 1878, was named after the Parsi Prophet “Zoroaster”.
It was designed & built by Sven Alexander Almqvist for the Nobel brothers, in Motala Verkstad.
● It was commissioned for the Nobel brothers, Ludvig and Robert, to transport kerosene across the Caspian Sea.
● The Zoroaster made its first run from Baku to Astrakhan in 1878.
● The Zoroaster carried its 246 metric tons (242 long tons) of kerosene cargo in two iron tanks joined by pipes.
● In October 1878, Nobel ordered two more tankers of the same design: the Buddha and the Nordenskjöld.
Significance:
The Zoroaster and other early oil tankers pioneered the method of carrying liquid cargo by ship.
Very interesting.
The Alexander Turnbull Library in NZ hosts the original photograph of this ship and quite a different story to go along with it. https://digitalnz.org/records/22471873
I had visited Azerbaijan History Museum in Baku in 1999 where I saw a painting on display of this Tanker. The name on this Tanker is “Zoroaster -World’s first Oil Tanker-1878’’ all written in Russian.
I might add The hotel I was staying in had a number of buildings with Persian names. The building I was staying in was named Cyrus. Azeris pronounce it as Ceeroos.
I also visited Atash Gah which was managed by Ministry of Cultural and Tourism. Mostly the writings all over was in Sanskrit. Seemed like more of Hindu influence .